Revisiting an old friend

Over the last year I have been trying to re-embrace my artistic inner child. I guess it's a way to make sure I stay "tuned in" to beauty around me, an excuse to stop and ponder the shape, pattern, colour or texture of something. Then to wonder how on earth I might attempt to recreate that feeling in two dimensions. Some days I don't feel inspired to draw anything in particular so I just pull out the pastels and blend colours, get pastel dust on my clothes and under my fingernails.

I love the way kids give pictures, for no other reason than they thought of you and wanted to give it to you. I love getting pictures - they brighten up my life, my fridge, my office cubicle and put a smile on my face. Today I was thinking of my niece and so thought I'd make her a picture.



This print comes from a lino cutting I did quite a few years ago....I dug it out of a dusty old box a little while ago and printed a few pictures with it, it even made it into my sketchbook. I have tended to print it in bold colours on crisp white paper. Today I wanted to give it a bit more mood, some of that sepia toned olde worlde look I like so much. I think maybe that is one of the joys of lino, you can revisit an old friend and give it a reinterpretation depending on your mood and.... your colour obsession of the moment.

Happy playing!

Melbourne's blue bikes

I was in Melbourne for the weekend recently....I don't go there often but I think I need to make the trip more often because it's such an incredibly cool city! After the architectural dryness of Canberra it was great to wander the streets looking at all the old and the very new buildings. Melbournians don't seem to be afraid of making a statement with their buildings....one of the RMIT buildings looks like it's been covered in green slime!



Melbourne also seems to embrace new ideas so much faster than other Australian cities. As I strolled around the city I kept coming across these bike racks. The one in the photo above is in Federation Square right in the heart of the city. So, it turns out they are communal bikes that you can hire for $2.50 a day....ride all over the city and drop off at a bike rack when you are done. How is that for forward (and green) thinking!



I had originally imagined this picture for my sketchbook as an incredibly intricate three layer stencil cut in lime and magenta.....then it dawned on me how long that would take...and how I've never done a stencil cut before....and would the paint bleed...etc etc. So I decided to paint it instead. Somewhere between the drawing and the painting I forgot about the lime and magenta and ended up with purple and orange. Not sure what happened with that....I think I'll have to address that sometime soon. I'm also not sure what I think of this drawing yet as it is so different from the image I had in head....me thinks....you win some, you loose some. That, and that next time I go to Melbourne I'll hire a bike for a day.